Mr. Brandgard said I think doing it during the normal workday
there is no problem with doing that.
Mr. Prince said I have reviewed it all and I’m very comfortable
with it. Of course, when they undertake this, I will be available and
I will keep a close eye on it to make sure that it is done how we would want it done.
Mr. Brandgard said we just have to make sure the schedule is okay
with what Mr. Castetter has planned.
Mr. Prince said a report on the recreation center we are moved in
and nine times out of 10 our phone system will work and you can get
through to us. I believe the phone system is about 90%. Internet and
e-mail and everything comes and goes. We are probably about 90% on that but we are moved out there and things are coming along per schedule. Our software vendor is coming to Town the 18th and 19th and 20th. We will continue with our software training that will allow us to scan the IDs as the first participants starting coming through the doors. We are training the inside staff just as we trained the Splash Island staff in their first aid and CPR and how to manage the building. There are several building systems that will be ready for you on the 8th. There are several building systems that we haven’t received training on yet. You can’t be anywhere in the building that we are not recording it except the restrooms and the locker rooms, of course. We are recording everything. We need to learn to use that system. We need to learn to use the building’s HVAC’s system. Other than that everything is tested and we will be ready to have the public on the 8th. That is all that I had tonight unless you had any questions.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
CONSENT AGENDA
Approval of the minutes of the Town Council meeting of
January 12, 2004.
Approval to purchase 11 portable radios at $4,095.00 each
($45,045.00); 52 helmets at $389.00 each ($20,288.00) and
enter into an agreement with Traffic Engineering, Inc. at
the cost of $18,300.00 for design work to install traffic
signal preemption equipment on all traffic signals on
Quaker Blvd. The preemption agreement has been reviewed
and approved by the Town Attorney. The above is per the
recommendation of Chief Byron Anderson per his report dated
January 22, 2004.
Approval to release the following bonds for the Bentwood
Subdivision, Section 1 per the Town Engineer’s Report dated
January 21, 2004:
Performance Bond #5003776, sidewalks, $33,210.00.
Performance Bond #5003777, erosion control, $71,225.00.
Performance Bond #5003781, asphalt paths, $37,039.00.
Performance Bond #5003775, base, binder, curbs,
sanitary, signs and lift station, $220,423.00.
Approval of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Town
of Plainfield and Christopher and Lorraine Mongan for the
intersection of U.S. 40 at Moon Road per the Town
Engineer’s Report dated January 22, 2004 and subject to the
Town attorney’s review and approval.
Approval of the Human Resources Director’s Report dated
January 22, 2004.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the Consent Agenda as
submitted. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried.
PUBLIC HEARING: Sierra Crest Equities Tax Abatement
Mr. Brandgard said we have a public hearing this evening for the
Sierra Crest Equities Tax Abatement. I will let Mr. Carlucci explain
what that is.
Mr. Carlucci said Mr. Daniel has the legal notice. I marked
where it was published in the weekend Flyer. Tonight we have the
public hearing for Sierra Crest Equities, LLC out of Sacramento,
California. They are proposing to develop 37.1 acres on the southwest
corner of Six Points and Stafford Road. It actually would be between
Columbia and Six Points Road is where this development would be
located. Over the life of the project they plan to construct 400,000
square feet of flex space and spend between $25,000,000.00 and
$35,000,000.00. Sierra Crest intends to begin construction of 104,000
square foot building in the spring of 2004.
Originally I had indicated to the Council that I would have to
take this to the Plainfield Redevelopment Commission. We had a
Redevelopment Commission meeting this past Monday but we did not have
to approve the abatement in the TIF district because it is not in a TIF district. When we looked at the maps, it was excluded so we just
swore them in, the elected officers, and it was a short meeting.
We have Brett Keeshin tonight who is the manager for Sierra Crest
in Indiana. Maybe he would want to come up and make a short
presentation.
Mr. Brett Keeshin said I’m one of the members of Sierra Crest
Equities. We just completed our acquisition of this 37-acre tract
January 14 from Airwest Associates and Mac McNaught. We are attempting to try to hopefully bring in a somewhat different product type to the industrial area of Plainfield. And try to take advantage of this new interchange and the proximity to the airport, etc. We have been developing in this area for about five years. We have been in Greenwood. We have been in Lafayette and we currently own some
property also in the downtown area. We appreciate you considering the
abatement proposal. I will welcome answering any of your questions
with regard to it.
Just briefly this is just sort of one of the reiterations of what
we are proposing to do. This is building one. This is the new
interchange that is being constructed here. This gives you a general
idea of what we are trying to do. It is a product with a lot of glass
and has a very much office look. We are trying to cater to pretty much any user that could take as much as 104,000 square feet but it could also go down to 7,500 square feet. Over the life of the project we have set aside this area for the capabilities to 100% for a corporate headquarters. In a perfect world maybe someone will have some distribution and also have their corporate headquarters on the same site. That is a quick synopsis of our proposal.
Sierra Crest Equities is based out of Sacramento. I’m based in
Chicago but I sort of feel like I live here. I planned to be here a
lot in the next five years. In any event we are very excited about the project. We are speculative developers. We are very comfortable in doing speculative products especially in this location. We are very excited about the new product type and we think it will be great and we hope the Council is as excited about it as we are. I can address any questions with respect to the abatement or I can answer any questions that you might have. But that is kind of a quick summary of who we are and what we are proposing.
Mr. Brandgard asked, do you have any proposed tenants yet or is
it pure speculation?
Mr. Keeshin said I couldn’t say that we have proposed tenants but
there are several tenants that know about the development. We just
literally bought the land a few weeks ago and some of them have a much higher office component and much more of a corporate use with office or warehouse. Honestly, our experience here, as opposed to other markets, until people see a building starting to go up or seeing people start moving dirt it is very tough especially on the speculatively side of things. But once we hopefully are approved for a tax abatement we plan to start the process. We have already met with Mr. Higbee and we have met with some members of the TAC committee about specifics about our site design. We hope to get moving here as soon as weather permits to begin our first building and hopefully coincide with some of the interchange completion hopefully in 2004 maybe or 2005.
Mr. McPhail said you said that you met with TAC.
Mr. Keeshin said we met with Schneider and with TAC last week and
we are submitting this Thursday.
Mr. McPhail asked, so are you aware of our Zoning Ordinances for
facade, etc.?
Mr. Keeshin said we are hoping to exceed that. We have been
through our first draft and we are getting comments back hopefully
today while I was driving and it will be submitted this Thursday.
Mr. Brandgard asked, is there anybody in the audience who would
like to address the Council relative to this tax abatement? With no
one coming forward we will close the public hearing portion of
tonight’s meeting and deal with the tax abatement at the appropriate
time.
BUSINESS FROM THE FLOOR
None.
TOWN MANAGER’S REPORT
Mr. Carlucci said we sent home the CD ROMs to the Council
members. Mr. Castetter is here tonight. If there is anything that you
have had any problems with, let us know. The one that we could not
print off is something that we did scan from a local business magazine and you could not print that off.
Mr. Kirchoff said we did have some difficulty. We just need to
come and work with it. I didn’t get the engineer’s report and some
things off of that but my PC did not recognize that there was a CD in
the CD-ROM. But I did get the minutes and the other issues so we will
just work with it and see how it works but it is a great start.
Mr. Brandgard said in my case I think everything was there. I
had to fiddle with it to get there.
Mr. Castetter said I’m sure we are all working at different
levels of technology and software.
Mr. Brandgard said the obvious thing is I have to pick up Adobe.
Mr. McPhail said and you need to recognize the different skill
levels of the operators too.
Mr. Brandgard said when you figure the new computers, you might
put the latest version of Adobe on it.
Mr. Carlucci said I received from the Vote of Registration, and I
know Chief Anderson probably has received it for the two department
buildings. There is Guilford 1, 2 and 3. Guilford 1 is out at the
police headquarters building. Two and three are the fire stations. I
need your permission to fill out those forms and send them back as they are used for a polling place.
Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent? Consent given.
REPORTS
Mr. Fivecoat said Saturday I attended a ribbon cutting at the
Family Christian Bookstore, their relocation out at Plainfield Commons. We had a ribbon cutting ceremony out there at 9:30 in the morning. It is a beautiful store.
Mr. Brandgard said it is and I’m told that is smaller than the
one that they had here but it looks larger.
Mr. Fivecoat said they said it was a little bit smaller but it is
more spread out and he has more books in there.
The next thing that I have is at the last meeting Mr. Belcher
passed out a traffic study to us. I sat down with Mr. Belcher and we
went over this. I had some questions and what really bothers me the
most on this traffic study is the speed of the cars out on Center
Street around our parks. We need to do something soon about trying to
get the speed reduced out there. In the traffic study the north
section where they had the study I figured out there was 12.3 cars a
minute going through there. The Center one, which is by our skate park is 13.6 cars per minute and then the south one there was 13.6. The speed in that area they said was 41 miles an hour on the north, 44 in the middle and 45 on the south. That is too fast for our parks. We are funneling all of our kids and people into that area for our trails in the park area and I think we need to look at this and do something as soon as possible.
Mr. Brandgard said I completely agree with your analysis although
I seem to remember several years ago we tried to enforce a lower speed limit but we had a judge that told us the speed limit was too low. So, we may have some convincing to do over there also. I think we need to get the speed down and enforce it.
Mr. Kirchoff said that is really one of the reasons that we did
the study. We can do some traffic calming, we call it.
Mr. Brandgard said I agree.
Mr. Fivecoat said the next thing that I have is I had a meeting
with Cecil Whitaker and Mr. Belcher to go over the sewers last week.
They are trying to get me up to speed with the sewers and wastewater.
I took a tour of the new facility and it is very impressive. I’m
looking forward with working with them.
Mr. Fivecoat said if you remember right, I was one of the
officers that did a study for that judge. At that time the traffic
tickets were written out there the average speed was 45 miles per hour or above. When I showed him the statistics, he backed off that
statement that we had a speed trap out here. We need to do something
out there before we get somebody hurt.
The only other thing that I have is for the police chief. The
other day I was on Perry Road about noon and I had three cars go by me over 70 miles per hour. They just absolutely blew me off the road. It was lunchtime coming out of the warehouses. We need to do something out there. There is a little bit too much speed.
Mr. Brandgard said I will add one to that. This morning the
roads were so good that while I was waiting on Stafford to turn north
onto Perry the light changed and a car was going so fast he couldn’t
have stopped if he tried because he flew through the light. They are
going considerably more than what the speed limit was.
Mr. McPhail said I attended my first police commissioner’s
meeting earlier this month. It was quite interesting and quite
informative. I look forward to continuing to work with the police
department. That was a different experience to go over some accident
reports and interview personnel, etc. that the commission does. They
provide a very important function and I do look forward to working with them.
I have a report on the recreation center. I think I will
probably wait until Mr. Prince makes his comments because we think we
have a scheduled opening date. I would like for him to be part of that so I will defer that until we get to his report.
I have one question for our Human Resources Director. Do we have
an official retirement date for Mr. Brown?
Mr. Lydick said the last report that I had was January 31.
Mr. McPhail said there will not be another Council meeting
between now and the time of his retirement. Here is a man who has
close to 30 years service with the Town. I certainly would like to
publicly comment that I appreciate all of the work that I have been
able to do with him over the past six years. I’m a little surprised
that he finally put a final date on it. I would just like to publicly
thank him for his service to the Town.
Mr. Brandgard said I was hoping that he would be here tonight so
that we could give him a proper send off but he has served the Town
very well during his tenure. He has seen a lot of changes and driven a lot of changes. He will be missed.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, were there any plans for any kind of
reception?
Mr. Carlucci said we will have one and he won’t know about it.
Mr. McPhail said the date kept bouncing around so I wanted to
make sure that it is this month.
Mr. Lydick said that is what he told the Council.
Mr. McPhail said I know that he said that but I wanted to know if
you processed any paperwork.
Mr. Lydick said I haven’t processed any paperwork.
Mr. Brandgard said he has told us that before. I understand that
possession.
Mr. Kirchoff said the first thing that I would like to do is pick
a date for our annual transportation work session, which I think we
tend to do in March. So, if you have your calendars, would the latter
half of March make sense? (It was concluded that the meeting would
take place March 18 at 6:00 p.m. here at the Town Hall).
Since we are talking about our calendars we have been working
with Mr. Belcher and Mr. McGillem and myself on the traffic study that Mr. Fivecoat alluded to and a couple of other things. I think we are at the point where we really need to go to some type of information night or public hearing. There are three things down in that area of Center Street and Hadley. We have the Center Street study. I think we need to make people aware what we are looking at and get some reaction to that. We have the sewer project and we want to get going on that soon. And then we have the roundabout and we met last week and received some information on a roundabout. All of that is concentrated in that area and probably do it down at Hummel.
Mr. Belcher said it seems like a logical place. Mr. Hickam
offered that when we talked about that other plan that we could use the building if we would like.
Mr. Kirchoff said we tentatively picked February 26, which I
believe is also a Thursday at 7:00 p.m. So, I’m not sure what type of
public notice that we need to get out or information or if Avatar could help us or something. We need as many people there as we can and probably make at least some of the homeowners associations aware that we are there. What we talked about doing was kind of what Mr. Hickam did on his master plan maybe have a couple or three stations set up and have one where they can talk about the Center Street study. And one where they can talk about what is going to happen at the lift station. And another one where they can talk about the roundabout. Not a place where we are going to have public testimony but just informational that we can say this is what is happening and perhaps talk a little about the calendar schedule, i.e., what is going to be coming. And just give people a chance to see what we are talking about and give us some input.
Mr. Brandgard said like we did on the recreation center.
Mr. Carlucci asked, can we add one more? I would like for you to
consider this because we are ready to go with Phase II of the greenway. We may not have all of the bridge issues resolved, what each bridge is going to look like. But we probably do have enough. Let me get with Butler Fairman and see if we can work this all in one night. That room is big enough down there. We are going to put a notice in the paper. It is odd how this works. We put a notice in the paper indicating that we are going forward with Phase II of the greenways. If anybody wants an official public hearing, they can write and demand one and if nobody responds within the time period, then we will go ahead and hold the public information meeting. But if we follow that program, it would be nice to do it all at once. Part of the greenway is down there at Hadley Road anyway. We would like to get that out of the way so that we can go forward with the rest of the federal requirements. At the same time we may know by then about some other extensions that we can do that are involved with federal dollars like extensions with the greenway pass, Saratoga Boulevard as you go west. So, let me work with Butler Fairman and get that notice in the paper as soon as we can.
Mr. Kirchoff said I think that all fits. We will just have
stations. We talked about what Staff needs to be aware of and which of our engineering firms can help us and just give people a chance to come in. I think what Mr. Hickam did, which I liked. I was not here when you did the one for the recreation center, but Mr. Hickam took verbal comments and he also had a questionnaire that people could give written comments. For instance, we have some questions about the roundabout and traffic flow there. We are not going to have a podium. We aren’t going to have people speaking in public but just get that kind of feedback and move forward with that.
Mr. Brandgard said we can be there and take any verbal comments.
The main thing that you are looking for is written comments. They could give them to you there or mail them back. I think your idea of having Avatar help to try to get that word out is probably a good move.
Mr. Whitaker asked, what time did you say?
Mr. Kirchoff said I think 7:00 p.m. should work. Probably a
couple of hours would be more than enough.
Which leads to another request. I guess I will tie these two
together. I had mentioned some time ago that the north/south corridor
study group was wanting to have a joint meeting of the Plan ommission
and the Town Council. My assumption was it would be each community
that would have their own so that we could look at our part of it as
well as the overall thing. What they are proposing is that we have
Avon, Brownsburg and the Plainfield Town Councils and Plan Commissions in one meeting. So, that it would cut down on the number of meetings for the consultants. It just originally got moved and they are asking if we could be available a week from tomorrow night, which would be February 3. I had a conflict but it isn’t one that I can’t get out of
Mr. Brandgard said I was glad they had a conflict on the 29th
because that way I had some advance notice of when the meeting was
instead of getting the minutes of the previous meeting the day before.
Mr. Brandgard said I was glad they had a conflict on the 29th
because that way I had some advance notice of when the meeting was
instead of getting the minutes of the previous meeting the day before.
Mr. Kirchoff said it is proposed at 7:00 p.m. February 3 at the
government center. Basically they have a presentation. They will talk
about the 1,000-foot corridor and where they have expanded it. And ask for input about what we see the uses being, etc. Any of the Plan
Commission members that can attend I think it would be beneficial as
well as any of us that could attend.
I’m going to go back to the other topic. Before we feel like we
are ready to go to the public on the roundabout we would like an
opportunity for you to see the latest engineering report on the
roundabout. It is a pretty short notice here. I’m going to be gone two weeks in February. You can do it while I’m gone or if you are going to make the meeting next Tuesday night anyway, we thought we might get there a little bit early. And we probably could in 45 minutes give you a sense of what we are looking at on the roundabout from the traffic flow standpoint. If you think you can’t make it, we need to pick another night.
Mr. Fivecoat said I don’t have a problem being there early.
Mr. Kirchoff said it would be one less night to be out at a meeting.
Mr. Gaddie said I will be out of Town February 3 so you can
handle it.
Mr. Carlucci asked, do you want to do this over at the government
center?
Mr. Kirchoff said yes. We will just have a room there ahead of
time. Does it need to be noticed?
Mr. Carlucci said yes. We can do that but I just need to arrange
with the County to borrow a room.
Mr. Kirchoff said there are a couple of meeting rooms off of that
major room. Again, we just thought we could have Parsons come in and
show you what they have done. And show you the traffic flow, show you
speed limits, show you that kind of stuff. We thought we owed that to
you before we went to the public. We wanted you to be able to walk
into the public meeting on the 26th and be informed. If we could do
that, it would just save another night and then we could sit in with
Mr. Gaddie at another time and show you what we have. Six fifteen
would work.
Mr. McPhail said we will probably be a lot more productive than
we will be at the later meeting.
Mr. Kirchoff said we will be ready and Mr. Parsons will be ready.
We put it tentatively on the calendars. But we are all busy so rather
than schedule another meeting and have you come in here for a 45-minute meeting it just made sense if we could do it before that.
Mr. Carlucci said we have three of the Council members coming in
prior to the Plan Commission meeting Monday night. Why don’t we do it
at 6:00 this coming Monday night?
Mr. Kirchoff said I can do that.
Mr. Carlucci said that may be easier.
Mr. Kirchoff said we will do it Monday night then on the 2nd at
6:00. Again, Mr. Gaddie we will sit down with you and fill you in on
what we are looking at here. We have about three different ideas of
some things that are kind of the pressure points down there. We really wanted to give you all a chance to think about that and give us some feedback before we go public on the 26th.
Mr. Gaddie said Mr. Fivecoat and I talked to Rick Whitlow on the
girl’s softball program. Last year they were approached about putting
banners, advertisement, on their outfields facing in. They would come
and give us a presentation on what they want to do. I don’t know what
the restrictions are but most of your baseball complexes have signs.
They have new types of banners that the wind doesn’t bother. They
would sell them to help pay for their equipment. I told him he could
get his board members together and get somebody to represent them and
present that or if he had one to show us what is what. I don’t know
what the restrictions would be.
Mr. Brandgard said I think that came up last year. I think part
of it is the proliferation of advertising in the public parks, which is not a good thing. Another thing is especially, and I’m not pointing fingers at the girl’s softball, but the Town provides the fields. The Town takes care of the fields. The Town provided the concession stand that they operate and keep the proceeds from. We allow them to have the tournaments that they keep the proceeds from. I guess I have problems putting advertising up in the parks that they keep the proceeds from.
Mr. Gaddie said on that comment with the Optimist club are you
going to supply them the type of facility?
Mr. Brandgard said we don’t supply the Optimist Club a facility.
Mr. Gaddie said not this year but next year. If that field is
going up there where they are now. That is something that Mr. Reel is
working on.
Mr. Brandgard said that issue is not today. That is another day.
Mr. Gaddie said that is something that we have to look at down
the road. We have to do something because we have a lot of parks there and a lot of nice facilities. Somehow we are going to have to work something in for 500 kids.
Mr. Brandgard said we are working on that but that is a separate
issue.
Mr. Gaddie said when I left the Optimist Club and went down to
Franklin Park with the Babe Ruth, that was nice. You had a stand there and you had a ballpark. Frank Anderson got the diamond ready. It was really nice and we didn’t have to spend two weeks getting the diamond ready. So, they do have some nice facilities down there.
The other thing I talked to Mr. Carlucci about was the American
Legion use in the building down there. They made a comment that they
couldn’t get in on Tuesday night, their normal meeting nights. They had some conflicts. They were going to get with Mr. Carlucci and try to get that straightened out. Because they are kind of the backbone of this community.
Mr. Carlucci said one thing that I want to bring up before I
forget is Mr. Whitaker has a guest with him tonight who is a new
Council member for the Town of Meridian Hills. Mr. Whitaker would you
introduce him please.
Mr. Whitaker said I would like to introduce Terry O’Brian. He is
the recently elected Council member for the Town of Meridian Hills and has been elected president. He is here tonight to observe and gain some insights from a board that has been working for a number of years together. I know that Mr. O’Brian was excited about the opportunity.
Mr. Brandgard said I appreciate you coming in. We appreciate
having somebody out there to talk to. Thank’s for coming in. If you
have any questions, let us know and we would be happy to help you if
you need some assistance.
Mr. Carlucci said I think I remember where I met one of your
council ladies. It was with the newly elected officials up in Carmel.
It looks they had an issue at Meridian Street. The old crew is out and a new crew is in. So, I remember talking about that and I’m real happy to see you here too.
Mr. McPhail said I would like to make a comment on the ball
diamonds and the banners. The subcommittee for the Plan Commission has been reviewing our ordinances. We will have a recommendation on a park ordinance that addresses that issue. Mr. Higbee will we be presenting any of that at the next Plan Commission meeting?
Mr. Higbee said yes. We have such a massive update pending that
we are going to bring it in two or three pieces. I think the piece
that includes the park will probably be on your February 2 agenda for
you to consider. After a couple of meetings like that you can tell us
whether you want to carry it forward to the Town Council.
Mr. Carlucci said I might want to make a suggestion on the park
part of it. A lot of that is time sensitive. Instead of waiting for the whole thing we might want to consider doing the park part first and adopting that. Otherwise, we will be in the middle of the summer the way we are going and that isn’t what they need either.
Mr. Brandgard said I think as far as the girl’s softball have
them come in but as far as if they want banners, the issue is with the Plan Commission. It is within the sign ordinance part.
Mr. Carlucci said I believe the gentleman is Robin Wright that is
ahead of the Optimist and he called me twice in the same day. He wanted to be on the agenda for tonight’s meeting. He called me back to take him off the agenda but my understanding is they want to come in and make a report. I seem to recall that before the end of the year Mr. John Reel came in and made us aware of a problem that we already knew may or may not happen out there with Lovell Field. This Council and other Councils don’t want 500 kids showing up at a meeting pointing fingers. So, he is going to call me back and he is going to present where they think their needs are for new fields. At least we will have a roadmap and then we can go from there to figure out where to go with it.
Mr. Gaddie said Mr. Reel will be back there in March I think.
They wanted to get what it would cost. The high school is looking at
this too. They need some baseball fields. If we could get four little
league size fields and four other fields that would be bigger, a couple would be set up for the high school. They are crimp on their reserves.
Mr. Carlucci said the Middle School would like to have a soccer
program and a boy’s baseball program but they just don’t have any room down there. When I talked to Mr. Wright, he told me he had a meeting scheduled sometime last week to meet with Dr. Hollifield. So, it seems to be moving along and again there are two things. There may or may not be development taking place at Lovell Field but the one thing that we do know is very soon we are going to be redoing Dan Jones Road from U.S. 40 up to Township Line Road and a little bit north of Township Line Road. We will be taking out that first line of grassy parking, the unofficial area, for parking. There are already people walking across the street and it is not a good situation. It certainly wouldn’t be a good situation if it is under construction having all of these cars going out of there. So, we are aware of the problem.
Mr. Gaddie said we talked to Mr. Doug Esamann. He was at one of
our meetings and we were talking about they have a softball diamond
that is not being used right now. We could work something out with
Cinergy to use that facility and open up the gate. They could park
there and walk in from the back side so that is another option that
they are looking at for parking.
Mr. Brandgard said I think the obvious thing on the agenda is we
need to find some place to relocate Lovell Field. I think we are
working toward that. I think relative to the American Legion that is
something that we need to work out because I know we did say that they could still use it for their meetings.
Mr. Carlucci said we did but I created the conflict by allowing
scheduling a sorority to meet in there. I’m caught between the
veterans and the sorority. So, we will get this worked out. Mr.
Prince and I had a meeting scheduled with them. The meeting got
canceled. A couple of them are not in the best of health. I got a
letter in my box today so we will get with them and get this scheduling worked out. So, that they can have access to the building too.
Mr. Isaacs said I would like to schedule the Board of Finance
meeting on the 16th, our second meeting in February.
Mr. Fivecoat asked, what time Mr. Isaacs?
Mr. Isaacs said at 7:00 p.m.
Mr. McPhail asked, is it a regular meeting night?
Mr. Isaacs said yes it is.
Mr. Isaacs said secondly, we have been looking at copiers. The
current copier that we have downstairs, the one that we own, is no
longer useable.
Mr. Kirchoff said the 16th is the third Monday.
Mr. Isaacs said it is a five-year agreement. We have looked at
several different vendors on this. This looks like the one that will
probably meet our needs the best. It covers everything except paper and staples.
Mr. Gaddie asked, what about the maintenance agreement?
Mr. Isaacs said maintenance is part of that as well. We also
have the ability to upgrade should that be needed.
Mr. Castetter said this is a lease of the service so we are
paying for the images. So, actually what we are looking at is a
document that is for “x” number of images per month. We will add to
those images as we put other machines on the program. So, it is really not for the equipment. We can move the equipment anytime we want to. We can give it back, upgrade it, get some more, take it in or take it out so it is just for images.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, do you have a cancellation option that if you
are unhappy you can get out?
Mr. Castetter said yes.
Mr. Kirchoff said because five years is a long time.
Mr. Castetter said yes at any time. It actually can be 36 months
up to five years.
Mr. Isaacs said five years does give us a better pricing. By
pooling all of our copiers we can get a better price as well.
Mr. Brandgard asked, so does that pool all of the existing ones
that we have leased?
Mr. Isaacs said except for the one exception.
Mr. Brandgard said that is a pretty good price. What I would
suggest doing is working the lease out and bring it in at the next
meeting.
Mr. Castetter said we have it in house. It is a page document.
We made it as simple as possible. It is pretty standard. I would be
glad to bring it at the next meeting but we need a copier.
Mr. Isaacs said we would like to move forward it before then if
we could.
Mr. Brandgard said I didn’t realize that you were that close on
it.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to move forward with the Clerk/Treasurer’s proposal to bring all of the copiers with the exception of the one at the fire department. And also replacing the one that we have in this building downstairs and adding another one smaller into the Clerk/Treasurer’s office under a five-year lease agreement as described in the amount of $469.00 a month subject to the lease review by Mr. Daniel’s review of the lease agreement. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried.
Mr. Isaacs said another item somewhat similar but not to the
magnitude to cost is a postal meter machine. We don’t have one in the
Clerk/Treasurer’s office. We have two on the property. One is at the
police post and one at the Town garage. We would like to add a third to the Clerk/Treasurer’s officer. We are working with the providers of the equipment to pool the ones that we have together under one agreement. So, that we can get better pricing as well. There is a maintenance fee for the machine but the idea of using stamps on all of the envelopes that we use we would like to move forward with bringing those together and providing an extra postal machine in the Clerk/Treasurer’s office.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, are there negotiations going on?
Mr. Isaacs said there is some negotiations going on. We have met
with four different vendors of that. Mr. Castetter had one opportunity to meet with one today and I’m not sure where that stood.
Mr. Castetter said Pitney Bowes is the vendor that we talked to
today. Pitney Bowes is the vendor for the machine at the police
department and also the Town garage. We went to two other vendors.
Putting all of them together we need to use the same vendor. This is a $40.00 a month deal so it is not real expensive. The contract again is 36 to 60 months. Wherever you pick and the longer that you pick the least cost. We are looking to do something for 36 months or 48 months. This is one that you can get out of. It is a 30-day deal. If you don’t like it, give it back. So, there is not a whole lot of risk
here. This one is ready to go so we could get that document to Mr.
Daniel to look at it.
Mr. Brandgard said I think this is another good initiative.
Mr. Carlucci said there is also control. It is key operated. We
have too many stamps just laying around. It is a lot easier to control where the stamps go if only one person is responsible for it.
Mr. Kirchoff said in the future I would like to see something of
what your numbers are like and what your bids are, etc. to support
that. It’s not big bucks here but as we go forward, if you could bring in proposals for us to look at.
Mr. Isaacs said I apologize for that. We have been trying to put
so many things together in such a hurried fashion.
Mr. Kirchoff said I appreciate your initiative.
Mr. Isaacs said they are just items that need to be taken care
of.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to move forward and add a new postage
meter for the Town offices. And to authorize the Clerk/Treasurer to
enter into a contract with Pitney Bowes to put all of the postage
meters into one contract subject to review by Mr. Daniel not to exceed $50.00 per month. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Motion carried.
Mr. McPhail said we talked about this issue several years running
about updating that software. It appears that we are making some
progress. I would like to maybe request Mr. Kirchoff if he would
volunteer to work with them on that. And when they get it ready to make a recommendation, that he would spend some time looking at that. I know he has been involved in the past and he knows what it takes for utilities besides all of the other stuff.
Mr. Kirchoff said I would be more than happy to.
Mr. McPhail said if you do, I would feel comfortable with it.
Mr. Isaacs said I would like to say that Mr. Castetter and Ms.
Burgner and Mr. O’Hair all have worked very hard on this.
Mr. Brandgard said relative to the Board of Finance we were
talking this evening about a new approach. Do you want to bring that up and get approval to do that now or wait until you have the Board of Finance meeting?
Mr. Isaacs said I think we need to have the Board of Finance
meeting.
Mr. Daniel said last Friday Mr. Carlucci, Councilman McPhail and
myself met with a public conservancy district board member, Bob Powell and their attorney. We have been working on a term sheet that went through a couple of revisions. I think, as of last Friday, we hammered out most, if not all, the items that we were still having discussion on. Unfortunately, that was Friday morning, and by the time the latest got revised again and it came through my computer and their attorney worked on it over the weekend, I didn’t get a chance to get it to the Town Council. We are not 100% complete on terms other than timing dates on how much time the Town will have to complete some work out there. I think we are pretty much finished with it. I don’t know if the Council wants to wait until the February meeting when we have that finalized to send it to the Council. Or give Mr. McPhail some authority to finish negotiating and sign off on the term sheet with Belleville or how you would like to do that.
Mr. Carlucci said as long as we are going to meet next Monday
prior to the Plan Commission meeting I can notice whatever you want me to notice and just bring it to that meeting and cut down the time frame a little bit.
Mr. McPhail said that would work.
Mr. Daniel said we need to move ahead but it would be nice if the
Council could see the terms.
Mr. Brandgard said especially for the new Council members who
aren’t up to speed on what is going on out there.
Mr. Daniel said we will notice that and I will get that revision
out to everybody and we will work on it next Monday.
Mr. Carlucci said if you will send me an electronic file, I will
make sure the Council members will get it.
Mr. Prince said we are going to talk about the recreation center
but I had a little tidbit that I wanted to show you. I just attended a parks and recreation conference within the last week and over the
weekend. The company that we purchased the barn off of, the barn and
playground, I talked to them at this conference. They put out a
supplement to the main catalog every year to give other people an idea of some great projects. The Town of Plainfield happens to be on the cover so I thought I would give you a copy of that. Of course, I was very proud.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, have you talked to them about the safety
concerns that we have with kids getting on the top?
Mr. Prince said yes. What Councilman Kirchoff is referring to is
this is the third American flag on top of the barn. We were flying a
flag up there so we sat out there and watched it one day. We figured
out how some kids get up there. It is when the bigger kids get up on
there between the silo and the barn. You can put your feet up on the
white rail and lift yourself up between the top of the silo and the
barn and get up on the top of the barn. We had some kids do that and I think Councilman Kirchoff saw some people out there when he was with their children. I have talked to some people. I’ve been using the parks recently and they actually told me how pleased they were to see our police department drive through our parks quite frequently. So, we appreciate that. We haven’t experienced any vandalism for quite awhile in the parks. I have seen a big difference out there. I was, of course, very proud that everybody at the conference was carrying our playground around.
I think one thing that we all have agreed with, and I think it
has really started to take place now, is just how wonderful of a
project that we have. We are behind schedule due to the problems that
we have but we are moving along at quite a fast pace now. Our
architect and our construction manager who have been working diligently have been able to provide us with dates. What we are anticipating now and what we will start working toward is that the splash island outdoor aquatic center will open on Memorial Day weekend. The recreation center building will open on June 31. The indoor pool may be about a month delay after that. The building was actually built using the locker rooms as part of the requirements for restroom facilities. So, Summit is finishing those interior portions so that we can still access those from the pool deck. It will take some flexibility that we all have and that we are capable of doing. We are planning on opening the pool up for the typical Memorial Day weekend.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, is that Saturday?
Mr. Prince said we were just discussing that. Memorial Day is on
a Monday. We will have to decide what we mean when we say Memorial Day weekend. I would assume that we could do Saturday, Sunday and Monday. What typically is done is after that Monday the pool reverts back to weekends only until school is out for the summer. And then it assumes its summer hours, which is being planned right now for 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and then have special events at the aquatic center from 6:00 on into the evening as needed.
Mr. McPhail said we do need your approval on one issue to make
this happen. For this to happen we need to relocate the construction
trailers to the Mann property that we bought some time ago. I think we talked about the first of March to be able to start moving those so that we can get the rest of the site done. There will be some expense, and we don’t have any numbers, to get that ready to relocate the trailers and to be able to work from that area. We need consent to move forward with that. I think we had everybody involved in the
meeting. We had Mr. Higbee, Mr. Foster, our fire marshal, Mr. Belcher, Mr. Rudolphi, Mr. Carlucci and myself. I think we had everybody that has anything to do to make this happen and everybody bought in on the project this morning. I think it is something that we need to move forward to do but we do need consent to use that property.
Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent? Consent given.
Mr. Carlucci said my wife and I went out for a walk from
Friendship Gardens Park through White Lick Creek Park. We got off the
beaten path and took a look at the bird viewing area and walked the
back trails. We came out by the red barn. We spent a little bit of time there because we noticed there must have been a war over there because I’ve never seen so many paintball canisters and paintball boxes back there. It is only a matter of time before someone gets hurt there. We have tried to close that in before but they are getting in there and they are playing war games in there. It is my suggestion that we either tear it down with our own forces or we hire someone to get that building out of there. It is a nuisance. I don’t know if there is any reason to save any of it. It is in pretty bad shape. We probably need to do something. Right now it is easy to see if anybody is over there because the trees don’t have any leaves on them. We suspect a lot of other things that may be going on in that building. It is not a functional building for our Parks Department unless you can think of something. The floors are uneven. There is a lot of old pieces of car in there. It is just not in good shape. But I got a little more concerned than I had in the past because there was a “no trespassing” sign up but I think they purposely covered it with the paintball because you can’t hardly read it. We need to take a look at that with Mr. Castetter and come up with a solution for that building. We will report back maybe at the next meeting with what we plan to recommend. Normally a building like that you wouldn’t mind having the fire department do something but there are no hydrants in the area and it would be difficult to get equipment back there. So, I think that is out of the question. There are a lot of trees around there up against that hill.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, what would happen if it did catch on fire?
Mr. Carlucci said we would get our tanker trucks down there.
They would go through the gate and drive down the ramp.
Mr. Castetter said there is a hydrant about 300 foot from the
building on top of the hill.
Chief Brinker said today marks my one-year anniversary and I
wanted to thank you all for the opportunity of this last year. I’ve
had a great time and hopefully we are moving things along in the right direction.
The other thing that I wanted to say is before we leave tonight I
would love the opportunity to get a photograph of you for your ID
photos. We will get those to you hopefully in a week or so.
Mr. Bill Castetter said I’ve not been here a year yet, a few
days, but I’ve had so much cooperation from everyone here. When I came in, I was really made to feel welcome and that happens everyday and it makes it much easier to do what I do under that kind of environment so I appreciate that. Mr. Brandgard said we appreciate the job that you have started to do for us. You’ve had some impact already so that is good. Mr. Jason Castetter do you have any reports?
Mr. Jason Castetter said no report.
Mr. Brandgard asked, are you sure? I think it was a fantastic
effort that you guys did last night.
Mr. Castetter said thank you for the comments. The guys worked
hard and they will be back out tonight.
Mr. Fivecoat said they do a fantastic job of cleaning our streets
and then we have these people that do contract work to plow parking
lots and they push it all back out into the streets. Is there anyway
that we can do something? Do we have to write an ordinance against
pushing snow out into the streets? I know on North Vine Street when
they plowed, they pushed all of that snow from the parking lot out onto Vine Street. They are even blocking the sidewalks. It is mounded up now from all of the snow being pushed over there.
Mr. Castetter said it does become a problem in places. We have
some communities that have homeowner associates where people come in
and do the community. The only place for them to put it is out in the
road. We will come through and we get jesters because we put it back in the driveway. It does become a problem especially now that it gets
this cold and it got slushy today. If they are putting it out in the
road and pile it up, it will refreeze and become a real traffic hazard.
Mr. Brandgard said homeowners have a habit of doing that also
when they clean out where the driveways are blocked.
Mr. Fivecoat said Mr. Castetter said even in the industrial park
they are doing the same thing. They are plowing their lots and are
shoveling it out onto the streets.
Mr. Kirchoff said I think there needs to be some kind of public
education.
Mr. Brandgard said I think we need to try the public education
before we try and deal with an ordinance that we would have to try to
enforce.
Mr. Carlucci said it is 54 days till spring so that is a plus.
Mr. Castetter said we have a lot of mobile basketball goals that
people sit on the side of our public streets. So, maybe that is
something that we can enroll in that public education that during this time of year that we need to get them moved back.
Mr. Brandgard said that is something that is not supposed to be
there anyway I believe.
Mr. Kirchoff said I see Avatar making notes.
Mr. Brandgard said if that would work, I would rather do that
instead of creating another ordinance. I think it is probably just a
matter of getting the word out to everybody. Putting it out in the
street is not any more difficult than running it across the street to
the next yard and pushing it up in the yard. When they clean my
driveway out, that is what they do. They pull it across the street to
the yard. I understand what you are saying and I suspect it is
becoming more and more of a problem.
Mr. Higbee said I have one item for you, which you can act on at
the next meeting, if you wish. I’m going to hand out the contract
agreement that is for our long overdue zone map update. There was a
little delay on this recently because the price of this zone map update is higher than we have ever had before. The reason is because of the number of platted lots. Those of you on the Plan Commission already know that the past couple of years we have platted more lots than ever before. So, what that does apparently is directly increase the cost of getting the zone map update, if you want to have those lots show up on your zone map. We have gone up substantially. I have reviewed the contract and it is good except for one clause in there that I mailed Mr. Daniel just this afternoon and I’m sure he hasn’t had time to look at it. There is a bunch of language in there about how the client, which is us, has rights to use the electronic data. And how the professional contractor has rights and I’m not sure I understand that so I wanted Mr. Daniel to take a look and make sure we weren’t sacrificing anything there. Subject to that and you agreeing to the price I think it was about $8,900.00 give or take. That is more than double of last year’s price but we have more than doubled the number of lots that we have on the map. I wasn’t able to get them to agree with me that when the number goes up, the cost per unit should go down. They wouldn’t agree with me on that.
Mr. Carlucci said I indicated to Mr. Higbee that we would put
this on the agenda for the next meeting.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, since you brought up GIS where are we on GIS
and the whole project?
Mr. Belcher said I can give you bit of update. There is a pilot
project in the downtown that has basically a working model of how the
GIS would work on the whole Town basis that will be done at the end of this month. Hopefully, we will have something to show you in terms of where it is. There is one major issue, and I will bring more
information to you later, about addressing and how we put addressing in the map. We intend to use it for computer aid dispatching, which
obviously requires the highest level of field verification of
addressing. It is something that has sort of evolved as we have gotten into this processing a year now from where we started to now. We need the field verification and it cost more to do that to get all of the parcels that we would serve actually field verified by some human being to go through each and check addresses and buildings, etc. We are going to have to add some work to this contract to get it at that level. All the aerials are in, the color aerials that we had done that the lots were in. There is a working model. They have a web site that the Council can look at if you want to come to my office and use a higher speed connection to look at it. But those are the things that we are in right now. It is going well. They are doing the sewer mapping and the water mapping and all of the data. The real cost to is is the data and that is what is being done. Hopefully, we will have something soon that I can show you.
Mr. Higbee said that map has been in a GIS compatible format the
last couple of iterations. So, that will be able to be imported into
the GIS when we do get to that stage.
OLD BUSINESS
Mr. Kirchoff asked, are there any results or any work on the tax
abatement?
Mr. Daniel said I think we determined that was the County.
Mr. Carlucci said the County did the abatement and we inherited
it because some of the forms that we filled out. But we did not grant
ADESA the abatement.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, where are we on “fixed assets”? Another
challenge that Mr. Isaacs will be facing is the State Board of Accounts has talked to us about “fixed assets”, inventory.
Mr. Castetter said the software that we are looking at has fixed
asset capabilities. We have no fixed asset software presently but this new software, the whole package that we are looking at, offers
utilities, accounting and fixed assets. It has a lot of features to
it.
Mr. Kirchoff said so when we look at the software review, I want
to make sure that we don’t forget that.
Mr. Daniel said you may recall the Jeff Ellis agreement was here
before. In the meantime Jeff Ellis & Associates have incorporated our
comments into their contract and they have approved it. Mr. Carlucci
has the approved contract with Jeff Ellis & Associates. They are ready to submit it to the Town. The same is true with Context Site Design. If you recall, there was a reference in their contract to standard terms and conditions but we didn’t have those before and we do have them now. The contract is complete. At such time the Town acts on them, Councilman Gaddie is authorized to sign that for the Town.
Lastly, if will recall some time ago, the County asked the Town
to enter into an interlocal agreement concerning the United bonds. They want to pay those off into a new EDIT bond. The Town would continue to make the same payments as in the past but they want to issue some new EDIT bonds. I told them at such time that they approve the memorandum of understanding we would submit it to the Town Council. Part of last week I got it from Greg Steuerwald, the County’s attorney and it has been approved by the County. I will submit that to the Town Council this evening to approve and that is all that I have.
Mr. McPhail asked, do we need a motion to approve the interlocal
agreement? Mr. Daniel said I think it is already approved. I think we
approved that before. All we had at that time was a fax copy, which
wasn’t a very good copy. So, I just think it needs to be signed.
Mr. Brandgard said I think it was approved but just needed
signatures. Mr. Kirchoff asked, did we approve Ellis and Context?
Mr. Brandgard said they both need to be approved. We held the
approval until we had everything that we needed and Mr. Daniel had a
chance to get them in the proper form for the Town. With that we would need a motion on each one with Mr. Gaddie the signatory on them since they are the Park Department.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the contract with Jeff
Ellis & Associates, Inc. for professional aquatic safety and risk
management services. And that Mr. Gaddie be our person to sign the
document. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Mr. Brandgard said we also have the Context PC Site Design
Services’ contract.
Mr. Kirchoff said if I remember, we excluded the bidding and the
construction observation. So, it was only going to be for the
$11,200.00.
Mr. Prince said that is correct.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the contract with Context
PC Site Design Services for the planning design development and
construction documents, which total $11,200.00. And that Mr. Gaddie be our person to sign the document. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Motion
carried.
NEW BUSINESS
None.
RESOLUTIONS
Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve Resolution No. 2004-03. A
confirmatory resolution for a ten-year real property tax abatement for Sierra Crest Equities. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Roll call vote called.
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. Gabbie – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr. Fivecoat made a motion to sign the necessary documents and
adjourn. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Meeting adjourned.
______________________________
Robin G. Brandgard, President
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